My apologies, but for the life of me I can't figure out why the quote tags aren't working tonight!
javaboy,
just popping in (things are slow at my job this time of year)...noticed your post. There's some good stuff in there.
javaboy said:
to the traveling public that thinks another airline will come along. dream on.
[post="234406"][/post]
Not necessarily. New airlines do pop up from time to time. But I certainly agree that the traveling public has no basis to expect a new airline to return the industry to its current capacity.
no they are not going to jump in with more planes to recover the seats lost by a demise of UAIR.
One would think not, but legacy carriers have a very long tradition of putting too much capacity out there. They
shouldn't but past experience suggests that they well
might. Go figure.
instead of say pit or phl or clt you will be funneled through ord, dfw, atl, msp, dtw, ewr, iah more than likely on regional jets.
Or JFK or...maybe served nonstop on WN. Your comment here suggests that you cannot see beyond carriers providing service 40 years ago. And, incidentally, the RJs still have a lot of reason to go away in many of their current markets. Frequency is fine, but not at the expense of profitability. :huh:
...because the plane is so full it just feels smaller. well that is the price of the cheaper ticket.
It is, indeed. Have we proven yet that AA's MRTC is a failure? This is something I'm still extremely interested in finding out.
some cities wont get service (ERI ABE HAR) and southwest aint coming soon to towns like that.
But nobody has explained why that's a bad thing. If we, as a nation, decide that universal local air service is as important as universal postal or telephone service, then we'll establish such a system. We already have subsidized air service to some cities. Why is it important to have?
try riding air tran to oh say London, or Hawaii
To Hawaii, one can now fly Aloha from the West Coast. I would hardly be surprised to find some further expansion eastward. As for European destinations, I suspect that we're getting close to the time when LCCs will serve them, simply due to a lack of domestic markets remaining for expansion.
In the meantime, AA and CO are profitably serving Europe. NW is profitably serving Asia. That looks like it will continue for some time.
Time once again to wheel out Al Kahn and let him tell you (the traveling public) what a huge success deregulation is.
It is. I have more choices of airline between most city pairs than I did in 1975. And, in general, I can fly among them for less (inflation adjusted) than I could in 1975. I get to accumulate frequent flyer miles, free upgrades, etc., etc., etc. I couldn't do any of that in 1975.
The entire US aviation system is in shambles and simply put must be fixed one way or another.
The only thing that appears to be in shambles is the business models of a handful of carriers. That's to be expected in a market that shifts from regulated to deregulated.
imagine if you will Delta filing in 2005, and shedding its pension like UAL has done (is doing) the collapse of the PBGC will demand congressional intervention (think savings and loan of the 80s) simply because it must be done like it or not.
Do you honestly think that the airlines are the only ones, or even the most significant ones, with huge pension obligations? Take a look at GM's SEC filings sometime, will you? Yes, this is a problem at the legacy carriers, but it's a much bigger problem than that. It's nationwide, across all industries that still have pensions.
then what to avoid booking on a bk carrier ... you could very well not be booking on AMR, DAL, CAL, (all possible bk candidates within next 6months) UAIR, UAL, Hawaiian, Aloha, ATA, probably Independence Air. ok there's always Airtran (lost money last quarter) Southwest (admits when hedging runs out things will be quite different profitwise) Jetblue (-preannounced possible loss 4qtr) but lets see Jetblue travels to what 24 cities? SWA only 60 and airtran? if you leave in or near those cities you win, if you dont you lose.
Clearly you're not looking at the big picture. They're not all going to be in bankruptcy at the same time, or even at all. Those with the best business plans will stay in business. That's how capitalism works.
prices will begin to rise as airlines realize they can not go everywhere all the time.
Yeah, probably. That's pretty typical for any industry except technology.
their networks will retract giving certain airlines geographical dominance and pricing power.
Within reason, perhaps. But not monopolistic pricing, since there's little preventing another airline from entering the same market. That was part of what Kahn and Bailey had envisioned.
in other words the circle is continuing to form like the "trunk carriers" of the 60s i think in the next 10 years you will see something similar.
Yes and no, but more no. The trunks of the 60s had very clearly defined routes of ownership. That's not reforming today. True, different airlines are likely to have regions of strength, but that's
always been true. Only in the late 80s was there even a glimmer of that not being the case.
UAIR in dire straights needs to rally the troops and calm investors, and allow the "experts" to point to a plan that says its a long shot but it just might work. something like this Robert Crandell former Ceo of AMR is appointed to CEO of UAIR or Gordon Bethune former CEO CAL.
I'd give better odds to me winning the Lotto jackpot. At this point, I think US is too far gone, but then again I'm surprised those midnight blue airplanes are still in the air.
While Low cost carrier expand domestically i would expect the legacy carriers will finally realize their hidden strengths and begin to exploit them.
It'd be about time.
There is no pricing power (fare wars) on overlapping routes. so instead of pouring flights on to combat the loss of market share, they will instead keep a token few (probably their regional partners on it) and begin to empahize what LCCs can not offer international long range flying. or to destinations LCCs simply wont or can not go. (think Europe, Asia, ect...)
That'd work if they didn't have to serve all of those cities to build enough demand to fill the aircraft at the international gateways. How much of the domestic market can you afford to lose money serving in order to support those profitable international flights?
at the same time the LCCs will now co-exsist with the Legacies each respecting the others "turf"
Now this is laughable. LCCs have little reason to "respect" any "turf." WN certainly didn't "respect" PHL. :huh:
a better product will be offered to the consumer and flying while on fuller planes will become more "human".
Not while B6 can profitably offer a better product than US at the same fare, while US loses money.
